Tuesday, March 25, 2014

What We Do in Our Spare Time - Part 2

We decided to take both suggestions given us in the last installment of "What We Do in Our Spare Time," and make stories out of them. We hope for more suggestions this time. Enjoy!

1. Photo album

2. The complete works of Shakespeare

3. Mt. Vesuvius

Running through a library was not all it was cracked up to be, Emily realized, skidding around a shelf and sprinting down a tunnel of enclosing shelves. Confusing, straining, and with no point she could think of, except to confuse her pursuers.

A few shelves over, the heavily accented swearwords gave her the exact location of her closest assailant. He would soon reach her shelf row, and then he’d be on her. Burning to a halt right at the next crossroads between shelves, Emily grabbed a heavy history book from the closest wall of books, flipped to a page on Mt. Vesuvius, and ripped it out.

Tossing the book aside, Emily crouched down at the edge of the row, listening as the heavy footsteps thundered around the second shelf over. Flattening the vandalized piece of paper to the carpet, Emily jerked it out into the hallway just as the massive foot of the running man planted itself firmly onto it.

With a yell, the man careened forward in a crash landing, slamming to the floor. Along the next row, Emily heard the second man shout, and start sprinting to his comrade. Stepping slightly back, Emily waited a second then threw herself against the intervening slab of books, sending what looked like the complete works of Shakespeare thundering into the next row, neatly hitting the running man straight in the head.

Both men now neutralized, Emily jogged to the front of the library, passing the desk at a run before the librarians could stop her and slamming through the front doors out into the Twilit streets, slowing to a wary walk at the end of the street, sure that she would never visit that library again. What would they do, she wondered, if she had returned that photo album three days overdue?

1. A ring with a blue gem

2. A log that won't burn

3. A ship

The king was dead. The funeral was held on a Thursday.

The king’s wife wept.

The king’s son stared, stone-faced, at the king’s coffin.

The king’s men saluted.

The king’s dogs howled.

They took the king’s coffin, hoisting it onto the shoulders of six men. They marched down to the seashore. They laid the king’s coffin in the prow of the boat. They laid the king’s sword in the king’s cold hands. They piled all the king’s treasures around him, including a blue diamond ring he had won from a dragon.

They stacked logs on the king’s pyre. They brought oil and poured it over the king’s ship.

The king’s priest anointed him. The king’s family wept over him. The king’s son lit his father’s pyre. The king’s men gently pushed the ship out to sea.

The king’s warship did not burn. The fire could not burn the logs. Instead, it quietly floated out to sea, and the darkness of night overtook it. The king’s ship disappeared, and was never seen again.

------------

Hoped you enjoyed it! Our first installment of this segment on the blog is posted just below, if you want to read the other stories.

Comment below with your 3-item story prompts! See you soon on Iron Wyvern!